LP 791-18 d, hier afgebeeld, is een wereld ter grootte van de aarde op ongeveer 90 lichtjaar afstand. De aantrekkingskracht van een zwaardere planeet in het systeem, weergegeven als een blauwe schijf op de achtergrond, kan leiden tot interne opwarming en vulkaanuitbarstingen – net als Jupiters maan Io, het meest geologisch actieve lichaam in het zonnestelsel. Astronomen ontdekten en bestudeerden de planeet met behulp van gegevens van NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope en de Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite samen met verschillende andere observatoria. Credits: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle)
De planeet, genaamd LP 791-18 d, werd geïdentificeerd en geobserveerd met behulp van gegevens van[{” attribute=””>NASA’s Tess satellite and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
A team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Montreal has recently discovered an Earth-sized
The planet was found and studied using data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (
Volcanoes erupt and clouds swirl in this animation of the Earth-size world LP 791-18 d. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle)
In the paper titled “A temperate Earth-sized planet with tidal heating transiting an M6 star” published in the journal Nature, the researchers explain how they detected and studied the new planet. LP 791-18 d was discovered orbiting a small red dwarf star located approximately 90 light-years away in the southern constellation Crater. Researchers estimate that the newly discovered planet is only slightly larger and more massive than Earth. There are two other previously known planets in this system, referred to as LP 791-18 b and c. Each time planets c and d passed each other in orbit, the larger planet c produced a gravitational pull on planet d. This consistently deformed planet d and created an internal friction, which substantially heated the planet’s interior and produced volcanic activity at its surface.
The study moreover noted that LP 791-18 d is tidally locked, meaning it has one side that permanently faces its star, while the other is in continuous darkness. Tidal-locking, in addition to the significant amount of volcanic activity suspected across the planet would enable LP 791-18 d to sustain an atmosphere, and allow water to condense on its night side. This is significant, because the ability of a planet to sustain water in liquid form is key to its potential habitability.
Planet LP 791-18 c was recently approved to be observed using NASA’s
Reference: “A temperate Earth-sized planet with tidal heating transiting an M6 star” by Merrin S. Peterson, Björn Benneke, Karen Collins, Caroline Piaulet, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Mohamad Ali-Dib, Jessie L. Christiansen, Jonathan Gagné, Jackie Faherty, Edwin Kite, Courtney Dressing, David Charbonneau, Felipe Murgas, Marion Cointepas, Jose Manuel Almenara, Xavier Bonfils, Stephen Kane, Michael W. Werner, Varoujan Gorjian, Pierre-Alexis Roy, Avi Shporer, Francisco J. Pozuelos, Quentin Jay Socia, Ryan Cloutier, Jeremy Dietrich, Jonathan Irwin, Lauren Weiss, William Waalkes, Zach Berta-Thomson, Thomas Evans, Daniel Apai, Hannu Parviainen, Enric Pallé, Norio Narita, Andrew W. Howard, Diana Dragomir, Khalid Barkaoui, Michaël Gillon, Emmanuel Jehin, Elsa Ducrot, Zouhair Benkhaldoun, Akihiko Fukui, Mayuko Mori, Taku Nishiumi, Kiyoe Kawauchi, George Ricker, David W. Latham, Joshua N. Winn, Sara Seager, Howard Isaacson, Alex Bixel, Aidan Gibbs, Jon M. Jenkins, Jeffrey C. Smith, Jose Perez Chavez, Benjamin V. Rackham, Thomas Henning, Paul Gabor, Wen-Ping Chen, Nestor Espinoza, Eric L. N. Jensen, Kevin I. Collins, Richard P. Schwarz, Dennis M. Conti, Gavin Wang, John F. Kielkopf, Shude Mao, Keith Horne, Ramotholo Sefako, Samuel N. Quinn, Dan Moldovan, Michael Fausnaugh, Gábor Fűűrész and Thomas Barclay, 17 May 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05934-8
